There Lies A Darkness
by golden starfish
Summary: Fic based on what happened to McKay in Lost Boys. Spoilers for spoilers about for The Hive. [complete]


Paring: None

**Disclaimer: I don't own Stargate Atlantis or anything else related to it. :'( **

Author's notes: Thank you to my beta, imskysmom, all remaining mistakes are mine. I expect this to be classed as AU upon showing of "The Hive"

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**There Lies A Darkness**

McKay sat with his head in his hands; his body was quivering like a leaf in a strong breeze. He lifted his head and looked at the top of the crate in front of him at the syringe and the vial of the enzyme sitting there ominously. There was an aching in his bones, like screws being driven slowly into them. The withdrawal was… well Beckett had offered a sedative, more than offered really, he'd tried to inject. McKay had freaked; a downer for the upper, an upper for the downer, a cocktail, a permanent drug induced haze, he couldn't take it. He had vague recollections of punching Beckett. He didn't, he wouldn't, not a friend.

He'd stolen some of the wraith enzyme from the infirmary before fleeing the infirmary, although he wasn't sure why he had. It was a compulsive act; the desire had surged through his veins, betraying his intentions, urging him on.

Reaching out, he laid his hand on the vial.

Addict.

Despite his misgivings, despite the hatred of who it was turning him into, what he had already become, part of him wanted it. _Really_ wanted it. He felt the pain ease in anticipation. Beautiful, brief psychosomatic relief, another breath and it was gone. Teyla, Ronon, they had delighted in the enhanced strength, but McKay hadn't cared for that. It was his mind that mattered so when he felt the drug altering his mood, his thoughts, he was terrified. But there had been a strangely beautiful clarity in the drug addled mind. He had felt like he could solve the problems of the world, of the galaxy, anything was within his reach, it didn't matter that his equations made no logical sense when he was sober, on the drug they seemed to. He looked down at his arms; puncture wounds and bruises littered them. He thought of the stimulants Beckett had given him and Zelenka when they were working on the nuclear warheads. This wasn't the same. Was it?

Drug abuser.

This enzyme was like the Pegasus' galaxy version of all manner of wonderful, wait, the word wonderful, that wasn't right; was it? He looked down at his knuckles, red, swollen. He'd hurt his friend. Who was he becoming? Unpredictable... violent, it was like he was losing the capacity for rational thought, as though the personality of Dr Rodney McKay might suddenly dissolve into the ether. In a way it already had when the drug first threaded its way through his body against his will. However much he had tried to resist its effects it was a futile battle, it had already taken over, it had already begun changing him, destroying him.

He'd seen his face in the mirror earlier that day, his eyes sunken, lined by dark rings, a reflection of so many people he'd passed by in the street.

User.

His skin itched, like a thousands needles stuck just beneath the skin, yet he was only one pin prick away from silence, from darkness.

Junkie.

Please welcome back to Earth "Mr. I've got more degrees than I can count and veins full of junk" McKay. He sighed. What a pretty sight he made, swollen knuckles, his arms an patchwork of fading bruises. They would be looking for him by now. A corpse. The image flickered through his mind like all his thoughts nowadays, partial, incoherent. A needle stuck in the dead arm.

This had to be over. He hated what _they_ had turned him into, what it had driven him too, hurting his own _friends_, hurting himself. In some small way he almost forgave Ford for drugging him the first time, this drug… there were definite changes in personality. Yet however much he understood what Ford might have been going through it was no excuse. No excuse. There was never anything that justified or excused hurting, imprisoning, drugging your 'friends'.

He stood up and violently flipped the crate over, sending the glass vial smashing to the floor. Gone. He wanted no further part of it. He just had to keep telling himself that.

His body was still shaking, from a mixture of withdrawal and adrenaline. He left the store room and headed for the transporter. It seemed like the transporter journey took days; he could feel his heart in his head; he could hear the humming of its beat. The doors of the transporter opened; he felt his already unsettled stomach clench in anticipation of his act. He stumbled towards the wall. Struggling to swallow down his fear, straightening up, he walked into the infirmary. His breath caught when he heard the guns arming and pointing at him. He didn't see them through the haze, but he felt them; he knew why they were there.

"I'm going to talk to Carson. If you're going to shoot do it now, get it over with," his voice quivered but the tone was flat, dead.

"Sir?" The guard said talking to Beckett but with his eyes still firmly fixed on the target.

"It's okay, lieutenant, let him come over."

McKay noted that Beckett hadn't told them to lower their guns. He was still a dangerous fugitive. Any other time he would have laughed at that notion.

"Rodney?"

McKay saw him sitting at the far end of the infirmary on a chair with an ice pack to his face. "I'm sorry… I didn't mean…"

"You did," Beckett said calmly.

He had. Beckett was right. "Carson." He took a deep breath, "I'll do it."

"Do what?"

"Come off the enzyme, but only if you promise to give me no other drugs. Nothing. Not even paracetamol."

"You don't have to…" Beckett trailed off when he caught sight of the despair and pain visible on McKay's face, "are you sure?"

McKay saw only one viable way out of this. He nodded, he was sure, sure as he ever could be. McKay remembered their conversations at the beginning of this, Beckett saying that it would hurt like something 'beyond his wildest nightmares.' McKay knew that now. The pain was continually intensifying; it felt like his body was shutting down and would soon cease to function.

Beckett instructed the guards to stand down, and getting up made his way to where McKay was standing, just inside the entrance to the infirmary.

McKay felt the gentle touch on his arm, urging him forwards; the world was a haze, a spectacular haze. This all seemed like a dream, nightmare, he wasn't sure his feet were even touching the ground anymore. The sound of his footsteps echoed in his head, like a distant parade; the only thing keeping him grounded was the pain ravaging his entire body.

"No more drugs," he said it as much to reaffirm his vow to himself as to Carson. "No more drugs."


End file.
